Nigeria: Senseless Killings As National Pastime

By Dan Amor

Irrational impulses are not surprising in the stress and tension that characterize a demented society. In an atmosphere of violence, reason is sometimes abandoned and humanitarian principles forgotten. The inflamed passions of the time lead men and women to commit atrocities. 

*President Buhari and Army Chief, Gen Burutai 

But the concern here is not with the psychological pathology of those who commit atrocities but rather with what has turned our nation into a slaughterhouse where human beings are daily killed with intimidating alacrity. Throughout modern history, atrocity propaganda has often mesmerized readers thousands of kilometres away from the scene of the crime. Often, the improbability of the actions described suggests that the stories were little more than fantasies concocted for diverse reasons from even more diverse sources.

Nigeria: So Much Anger In The Land!

By Robert Obioha

There is anger in the land. Nigerians are not happy. They are fuming with anger and despair over failed electoral promises of the ruling party.  They are angry over their miserable living conditions. They are angry over the continuous rape of the country by her unfaithful political leaders. There is no mistake about it. Every Tom, Dick and Harry are bitter about the excruciating Nigerian condition. Even children are not excluded.

*President Buhari

The Nigerian condition is fast becoming beyond prayers and redemption. It has defied all logic and solutions including dry fasting and intercessory incantations. It can be easily felt from the north to the south and from the east to the west. Everybody in Nigeria is angry over the general insecurity in the country dubbed the giant of Africa. Apart from the menace of the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east and other isolated places, the murderous campaign of Fulani herdsmen across the country has caused much pain and anguish in the land to the extent that a former Defence Chief, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (retd), has urged victims of such mindless attacks to defend themselves. 

Mr. President, Under Your Watch Corruption Only Changed Its Tactics And Swagger!

By Ishaq Sani

Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for rewarding our die-hard loyalty with betrayal. Before the 2015 election, those who told us never to believe in you, and described you as nepotistic and tribalistic, and called you an unrepentant fundamentalist have been vindicated. Those who ascribed your 1984 war against indiscipline and corruption fight to Gen. Tunde Idiagbon did not lie.

*President Buhari 

Shortly before the 2015, I likened you with my idol Thomas Sankara, and deified you like the Greek god Apollos, but like the popular cliché “the leopard cannot change the colour of its skin,” you proved our opponents right.

Under your watch the lives of animals appear to be more sacred than the lives of humans; killer herdsmen or better still, unknown gun men, as you would prefer them to be called, are the second most deadly terrorist group in Nigeria and not IPOB as your government tried to establish.

Southern Kaduna Massacres On My Mind

By  Sufuyan Ojeifo

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and, therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne

Southern Kaduna is a microcosm of Nigeria.  It is, by any stretch of the imagination, emblematic of our collectivity.  The people, who are marooned in their troublous ancestral Kaduna locale share a common civilization with us who are, somewhat, liberated in the ambiance of the expansive Nigerian-nation. Therefore, the killings of southern Kaduna indigenes by Fulani herdsmen, for whatever reasons, are nothing but fatal assaults on the humanity in all of us. 

The south of Kaduna has, historically, become a minefield of mindless genocide that has left the people immersed in eternal fear.  Scores of indigenes have been killed by installments.  Unfortunately, many more will, painfully, be victims of Fulani herdsmen’s fatal rampages as there are yet no verifiable foolproof measures in place to avert the incessant cold-blooded massacres that have been the tragic narrative of the hapless people.

One is continuously diminished by the killing of a man or woman, youth or child in southern Kaduna, an enclave that is predominantly occupied by Christian population.  “One life taken in cold blood,” according to the late inimitable journalist, Dele Giwa, “is as gruesome as millions lost in a pogrom.” 

Fulani Killer Squads, Nigeria Police And Chocolate City

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Nigeria has returned to a familiar turf as a society in very deep distress thereby necessitating good Christians and Muslims to embark on wide ranging prayers and atonement sessions to solicit divine intervention.

Only yesterday, the Catholic Church around the country continued with the recitations of the Unique prayer for Nigeria in distress composed by the Nigerian Catholic Bishops Conference during the regime of the military dictator- Late General Sani Abacha.

In Maiduguri, Borno State, report has it that in over 90 mosques, the adherent of the Islamic religion last Friday interceded for the quick recovery and return to work of the Nigerian President who was only recently described by a foreign press as the “missing president”.

Buhari originally travelled to London for a ten days medical vacation but ten days has turned into a full blown Month with no known exact information on when he would be back to the Country.

But the defining moments that reminds us all that Nigeria is in very spectacular distress is the weekend's illegal arrest, detention and belated release of the young Nigerian entrepreneur Mr. Audu Maikori by the police for alleged incitement following a social media posting he did on the Southern Kaduna Massacres by the armed Fulani thugs.

Mr. Maikori, a lawyer by training and a leading light in the Nigerian Music scenes, was arrested in Lagos around noon Friday by a team of policemen attached to inspector-general monitoring and intelligence team and was immediately transferred to the Force Headquarters in Abuja.

Mr. Mark Jacobs, the Legal Counsel to Maikori said the arrest was in connection with a series of tweets posted by Mr. Maikori about four weeks ago in which he alleged the killing of some Southern Kaduna residents by Fulani herdsmen.

But details of the tweets, which Mr. Maikori said were obtained from his driver, turned out to be false.

Mr. Maikori later retracted and apologized for the false information. A magistrate in Kaduna issued a warrant for his arrest, his lawyer said. But it's a notorious fact that Mr. Audu Maikori was humiliated by the police on the illegal instruction of the Kaduna state governor only because he is a Christian from Southern Kaduna and because he has consistently condemned the atrocious mass murders of his people by armed Fulani terrorists.

The arrest of this young Nigerian business executive born by Southern Kaduna parents was sequel to earlier threats by the Kaduna State governor that he will order the detention of anyone spreading information about the killings in Southern Kaduna State. It is a well-known fact in a lot of circle that Nassir El Rufai is an unrepentant ethno-Islamic bigot. He was once quoted to have tweeted a hate message stating that for every Fulani man killed the Fulani will not forgive but will decimate many from the community whereby this killing takes place. El Rufai is not known to have dissociated himself from this apparent hate message on his tweeter handle. 

Gov El-Rufai, Hypocrisy, And Executive Incitement

By Moses Ochonu

A couple of my interlocutors have written to say that Audu Maikori deserves to face justice for sending out a false tweet. I have no issue with that. There is a new law in Kaduna against incitement and if he is in violation of it and the state's prosecutors feel they can build a case, he should be prosecuted.

*Nasir El-Rufai 

But here are the issues that the few —yes, few— El-Rufai worshippers and those who share his ethno-religious and supremacist inclinations are avoiding and want to deflect by latching onto Maikori, the entertainment entrepreneur having become their convenient escapist scapegoat.

1. Is it not curious that all those arrested so far (Christians and Muslims) under this new anti-incitement law are El-Rufai's critics? Is it not equally curious that the governor's supporters who have been making incendiary statements and inflaming the Southern Kaduna crisis with their comments in support of the herdsmen killers and against the people of Southern Kaduna have not been arrested under this law? It appears that as long as you support the governor and join him in demonizing the people of Southern Kaduna and their leaders, your incitement carries no legal consequence. But if you criticize the governor's handling of this crisis or the Shia killings in Zaria and you say something that can be remotely interpreted to violate the capacious anti-incitement law, you get arrested. In this way, the anti-incitement law seems to be functioning as a tool for silencing El-Rufai's critics, an instrument for furthering his tyranny.

2. Is it not hypocritical and ironic for a governor who is the most inciting politician in Nigeria, and whose actions and comments have rendered him a biased umpire in the Southern Kaduna crisis and stoked the conflict, is arresting others for the offense of incitement? And I am not just talking about his well known pre-Governorship tweets at a time when he seemed to have been aiming for the award of the most divisive and inciting politician in Nigeria. I am talking also about his ONGOING incitement. During this crisis, El-Rufai has blamed the Southern Kaduna people, the victims of sustained killings, for bringing the genocide upon themselves by provoking foreign Fulani herdsmen. Just two weeks ago, El-Rufai was on Channels TV, asserting without a shred of evidence, that Southern Kaduna secular and church leaders were encouraging the killing of their own people because they were profiting from it!! This was coming from the governor of the state, but somehow we are supposed to see a false tweet from a citizen's account as a greater threat to peace in Southern Kaduna. A law against incitement may be a good thing if it can be enforced even-handedly (which el-Rufai has shown that it cannot), but a politician who is guilty of serial incitement, a politician indirectly complicit in the ongoing crisis, and a politician who is the inciter-in-chief in Kaduna does not have the credibility to be the enforcer or promoter of such a law.

The Misplaced Call To Pray For Tyrant

By Femi Fani-Kayode

Permit me to begin this contribution with an aside. It is only a weak, insecure, paranoid, wicked, heartless, ignorant, lawless and callous government that refuses to identify, apprehend, prosecute and hang the bloodthirsty, psychopathic and murdering Janjaweed Islamist Fulani militants and herdsmen and instead arrests an innocent and accomplished young man like Audu Maikori who simply had the courage to cry out to the world about the barbarous genocide that the people of Southern Kaduna and members of his ethnic group and religious faith are being subjected to all over the north.

*Femi Fani-Kayode

I am convinced that my old friend Governor Nasir El Rufai has lost it. He has literally been driven mad by the power that he now wields. If he wants peace in Kaduna state and in the entire country is this the way to achieve it? Does he really believe that locking up his critics and those that have expressed concern about the mass murder and crimes against humanity that are being perpetuated in his state by his Fulani friends and kinsmen who he publicly admitted that he sends public funds to is the way forward?

Does he not know that the suppression of dissenting voices and intimidation will only lead to more anger, resistance, violence and dissent? Can he not build bridges rather than burn them? Can he not make friends rather than make enemies? Here is my message to him: the people of Southern Kaduna are NOT your slaves and neither are the northern minorities, the people of the south or the Christians of Nigeria.

You can kill and lock up as many of us as you like: our faith will only continue to grow, we shall continue to go from strength to strength and we shall oppose and resist you till the bitter end. At the appointed time the Lord will strike back at you for your power show and sheer wickedness and He shall deliver His people. I will not beg you to free Audu Maikori but instead I will strongly advise you to do so. This brings me to the meat of this intervention.

One of the qualities that a Prince must have is the ability to speak truth to power no matter the price, no matter the consequences and no matter whose ox is gored.

Today I will share a truth which many may not like but which, as a leader and a Prince, I am constrained to share. Some have suggested that every Nigerian is compelled by God to pray for our ailing President. I disagree. I do not wish him ill or wish him dead but at the same time I do not subscribe to the view that I am compelled to pray for him. I would rather save my prayers for the thousands of Audu Maikori’s of this world who are suffering persecution and who are languishing in dingy cells all over our country for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I would rather save my prayers for the souls and families of those that have been cut short by the guns and bullets of government security forces, the bombs of radical Islamic terrorists and the machetes and knives of the Fulani militias and herdsmen.

When the Holy Bible says we must pray for our leaders the author was referring to God-fearing and Godly leaders and not usurpers and tyrants. The Bible says we must ‘resist evil’ and few would dispute the fact that with the economy in shambles, with the naira at its lowest value in its entire history, with the level of impunity and corruption in government and with the amount of brutal persecution, politically-motivated arrests and prosecutions and the massive shedding of innocent blood that goes on in our country today, Buhari and his Federal Government are pure evil.

As a matter of fact they are a cursed government that have come to do nothing but spread death, disease, poverty, tears, hardship, suffering, division, hatred, persecution, injustice, destruction and wickedness. To those that insist that even evil tyrants are worthy of our goodwill and prayers I put the following questions.

Gov El-Rufai Should First Arrest Himself

By Moses Ochonu

Governor Nasir El-Rufai has caused Audu Maikori to be arrested for sending a tweet that relied on false information about an attack that never occurred, a tweet for which he has since apologized. Maikori has been a critic of the governor's handling of the Southern Kaduna killings.

*Gov Nasir El-Rufai 

El-Rufai's latest canard to defend his tyranny and intolerance for critique is what he calls "a policy of consequence." Very chic. The problem is that not a single one of the foreign herdsmen he says are responsible for killing hundreds of Southern Kaduna people's have been arrested for murder. Not a single one of them has faced this "policy of consequences."

In fact instead of being arrested, El-Rufai rewarded them with handsome payments to silence their guns. Yet Southern Kaduna folks like Maikori who complain about their menace, even if relying on unreliable information produced in the haze of crisis, are hounded into detention. It's different strokes for different folks.

We have a situation now where the governor prioritizes what he nebulously calls the offense of incitement over that of mass murder. But even here, he is being disingenuous. Governor El-Rufai is the inciter-in-chief in Kaduna. Just the other day, he was on Channels TV accusing Southern Kaduna elders and church leaders of encouraging and profiting from the murder of their own people! What could be more inciting than this recklessly incendiary statement?

Who Will Protect Nigeria’s Northern Christians?

Every week, there are more massacres, but nobody seems to mind — not even their own government

By Douglas Murray

Another day in northern Nigeria, another Christian village reeling from an attack by the Muslim Fulani herdsmen who used to be their neighbours — and who are now cleansing them from the area. The locals daren’t collect the freshest bodies. Some who tried earlier have already been killed, spotted by the waiting militia and hacked down or shot. The Fulani are watching everything closely from the surrounding mountains. Every week, their progress across the northern states of Plateau and Kaduna continues. Every week, more massacres — another village burned, its church razed, its inhabitants slaughtered, raped or chased away. A young woman, whose husband and two children have just been killed in front of her, tells me blankly, ‘Our parents told us about these people. But we lived in relative peace and we forgot what they said.’

For the outside world, what is happening to the Christians of northern Nigeria is both beyond our imagination and beneath our interest. These tribal-led villages, each with their own ‘paramount ruler’, were converted by missionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries. But now these Christians — from the bishop down — sense that they have become unsympathetic figures, perhaps even an embarrassment, to the West. The international community pretends that this situation is a tit-for-tat problem, rather than a one-sided slaughter. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, the press fails to report or actively obscures the situation. Christians in the south of the country feel little solidarity with their co-religionists suffering from this Islamic revivalism and territorial conquest in the north. And worst of all, the plight of these people is of no interest to their own government. In fact, this ethnic and religious cleansing appears to be taking place with that government’s complicity or connivance.

Every village has a similar story. A few days before any attack, a military helicopter is spotted dropping arms and other supplies into the areas inhabited by the Fulani tribes. Then the attack comes. For reasons of Islamic doctrine, the militia often deliver a letter of warning. Then they come, at any time of night or day, not down the dirt tracks, but silently through the foliage. The Christian villagers, who are forbidden to carry arms (everyone is, in theory), have no way to defend themselves.

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Nigeria: A Hell-Hole For Christians!

By Femi Fani-Kayode

“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism and we will not allow it to take root in our country…we will wipe it off the face of the earth.”            

– President Donald J. Trump.

Now that is a real President talking! Sadly our ailing Head of State does not possess such a mindset and neither does he share such a disposition. Unlike Trump he does not have an aversion to such evil.

Consequently he has refused to apprehend, caution, arrest or prosecute even one member of the radical Islamist Fulani supremacists and terrorists since he came to power just less than two years ago even though they have butchered thousands of innocent Christians, burnt their homes and occupied their land.

A few days ago, in a letter inviting President Goodluck Jonathan to make a presentation about the plight of Christians in Nigeria, the Chairman of the United States Congress’s Sub-Committee on Africa, Global Health, Human Rights and International Organisations, Congressman Christopher Smith, wrote the following: “my subcommittee has broadly investigated the crises facing Christians in Nigeria today. My staff director, Greg Simpkins and I have made several visits to Nigeria, speaking with Christians and Muslim religious leaders across the country and visiting fire-bombed churches, such as in Jos. Unfortunately, Nigeria has been cited as the most dangerous place for Christians in the world and impunity for those responsible for the killing of Christians seem to be widespread.”

When one considers the sheer horror that the Christians of northern Nigeria have been subjected to over the last 56 years can anyone dispute Smith’s assertion? Yet it did not stop there. Mr. Douglas Murray, an influential and respected columnist in the United Kingdom’s Spectator Newspaper painted a graphic picture of what has become the norm in northern Nigeria rather well. Last week, in a widely read essay titled ‘Who Will Protect Nigeria’s Northern Christians’ he wrote as follows: “A few days before any attack, a military helicopter is spotted dropping arms and other supplies into the areas inhabited by the Fulani tribes. Then the attack comes. For reasons of Islamic doctrine, the militia often deliver a letter of warning. Then they come, at any time of night or day, not down the dirt tracks, but silently through the foliage. The Christian villagers, who are forbidden to carry arms (everyone is, in theory), have no way to defend themselves. With some exceptions, they also tend to believe what they were taught about turning the other cheek”.

With contributions and interventions like this from our friends in the international community it appears that the world is finally waking up and recognising the fact that northern Nigeria is in the grip of a great, blood-craving and blood-lusting evil. The frightful events that took place in Southern Kaduna over the Christmas holidays are still fresh in our minds and neither will we EVER forget them.

Yet sadly the carnage did not stop there. It continues on a regular and systematic basis. For example 40 more Christians were killed and many of their houses were burnt to the ground by Islamist Fulani militias on February 1st in a town called Mummuye in the Lau Local Government Area of Taraba state. Little girls were raped and chopped up like barbecue spare ribs. Young boys were sodomised and beheaded. Grown men were castrated and hacked to pieces. Old men were gutted and sliced up like spring onions. And women, both young and old, were slowly tortured and violently violated in the presence of their husbands, children and grandchildren after which their throats were slit open and their blood drained into fly-infested gutters and the dark night soil.

This is the work of heartless vampires and demons in human flesh. This is carnage and butchery in its rawest and most primitive form. This is a festival of horror and a frightful testimony of man’s inhumanity to man. This is evil. This is unacceptable. This is barbaric. This is condemnable. And whether anyone likes to admit it or not, this is Nigeria today. The only thing left to say is to pray that the souls of those that were slaughtered in cold blood rest in peace. The Holy Bible says “fear not those that can kill the body but fear the one that can throw the soul into hell”.

Before We Crucify Apostle Suleman

By Solape Lawal-Solarin

Apostle Johnson Suleman of the Omega Fire Ministry recently hit national headlines when a video of him urging his listeners to “kill any Fulani that comes close to me” went viral on the social media. He immediately attracted the attention of the Directorate of State Security (DSS). It was a drama that saw the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, playing the super hero as his timely intervention stopped the DSS from swooping on Suleiman, who was on a crusade to Ekiti, and whisking him away to its office in Abuja.

*Apostle Johnson Suleman

Although, the dust has settled now as the pastor came out to ‘clear the air’ that he was only urging his listeners to defend themselves in the event of an attack, arguments are still raging over the propriety of the apostle’s statement and the response of the DSS.

While it is okay to condemn the apostle irrespective of the excuses he gave, the fact still remains that the Nigerian state for so long has paid lip service to the ills bedeviling the system. It is often said that history is the best teacher for today, tomorrow and the future.

However, the country has failed to learn. It has simply been an unwilling student. This apathy has created a vacuum, cum crater, that has now become a gorge, thereby making it difficult for the government to fill it up.

Many atrocities have been committed and have gone unpunished in Nigeria’s history of religious violence. Killings have been carried out by various groups under religious garbs with the government looking the other way. The government’s inaction somehow rubber-stamped the impunity of the killers and further reinforced their beliefs and confidence. It also strengthened their resolve to continue perpetrating the heinous crimes.

This is a dangerous situation that can only dent the peoples’ belief and trust in the ability of the Federal government to ensure their security. It also called into question the sanctity of the ‘one Nigeria’ mantra   being bandied in Abuja and further raised eyebrows on the country’s professed secular constitution.

In a diverse, multi-ethnic country like Nigeria, it is important for those that are saddled with steering the wheels of state to acknowledge and respect the multi-cultural beliefs and faiths that would always be embedded in such peculiar political entity. Even the democratic government and principle in practice recognises and accepts this fact.

Under its tenets, respect for the minority and religious faiths is an essential feature in its modus-operandi. Hence, fear of bias and marginalization by a group seriously indicts any government practising democracy.

Nigeria: Enough Of Blood-Letting!

By Gbemiga Olakunle

And God sent an Angel into Jerusalem to destroy it, and as he was destroying the LORD beheld and He repented Him of the evil, and said to the Angel that destroyed, it is enough, stay now thine hand. Chron. 21:15, KJV.

There is no doubt that violence has become the order of the day in Nigeria since the advent of Boko Haram in the Northeast and the increased militancy with some elements of criminality in the Southsouth. The situation has already been compounded and is getting worse by the day with the unprovoked attacks that are being unleashed on the citizens of this country by some rampaging herdsmen.

In Nigeria today, to know the real value of a cow, what a farmer needs to do is to kill just one for destroying his farmland. And he will be lucky if his whole community members are not compelled to pay dearly for such effrontery/audacity with their lives in form of reprisal attacks from the herdsmen.

Anybody who is still in doubt should please read the pathetic accounts of the Southern-Kaduna killings where nothing less than 808 people have been killed with several others injured and property worth of millions of naira destroyed. The affected communities were reportedly paying for the sins that their fathers allegedly committed against the cows of some herdsmen who were caught up in the riots that erupted in the aftermath of the 2011 Presidential Elections.

While the authorities, especially the Kaduna State Government are claiming that these assailants are foreigners, these merchants of death have continued to spread their unprovoked attacks to other parts of the country until the Governor of Ekiti State, Peter Ayodele Fayose, checkmated them in his own Area of Jurisdiction (AOR) and put a final halt to it through decisive actions including a legislation. On its own part in addressing the issue, the Nigerian Army has announced that it would send some of its personnel to Argentina to learn Animal husbandry with a view to acquiring suitable acres of land throughout the federation for the purpose of establishing ranches to raise cattle – a move that many have suspected to be another way of introducing the contentious Land Grazing Reserves Policy through the back door and riding on the back of the military.

Fulani Herdsmen And Endless Killings

By  Benedict Ahanonu

FOR most part of 2016, Nigeria was plagued by incessant letting of blood by a group alleged to be Fulani herdsmen. While some may claim that the real Fulani herdsmen are peaceful and essentially mindful of their flock, the fact remains that this marauding group is composed of herdsmen who appear in the garb of Fulani pastoralists.

That aside, their modus operandi is unwavering and follows a common pattern. From Benue to Enugu, Delta, Ekiti and now Niger, Kaduna it has been a gory tale of woe.

Thousands of innocent Nigerians have been killed, cash and food crops destroyed, villages and communities sacked.
Because there seems to be no indication of readiness by the government through the security agencies to deal with these murderous offenders, they have got more emboldened even as they visit mayhem on Nigerians with flagrant impunity.
One had expected President Muhammadu Buhari to demonstrate strong leadership in dealing with these marauders whom it appears may not be Nigerians.

While there is “Operation Lafiya Dole” for the Northeast insurgency, “Operation Python Dance” for the Southeast Biafran agitators, “Operation Crocodile Smile” for the Niger Delta, there is none for this bunch of killers who have succeeded in inflicting pain on almost every part of the country.

It is even quite disturbing  and strange that the same President Buhari who is always quick to condemn such dastardly acts when they happen elsewhere has so far been unable to rebuke what seems like genocide taking place in Southern Kaduna.

Reacting, perhaps, at the behest of Buhari, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, who spoke on a Channels Television programme, “Sunrise Daily,” said that it was needless for the president to speak on the destruction of southern Kaduna State since the governor assured that he was in full control of the violent crisis and had been briefing his boss regularly.

Why President Buhari Ran(n) to Gambia and Away From Rann

By Reno Omokri

Till date, the only person who has died in The Gambia is President elect Barrow's son, Habibu Barrow, who was bitten by a dog. But in Southern Kaduna, hundreds of people have bitten the dust. 

If in truth President Buhari really wants to prevent a humanitarian crisis, the place he should be visiting and intervening in is Southern Kaduna before The Gambia.

*Buhari

And the penchant of the President to delegate pressing domestic problems to his subordinates while personally addressing foreign challenges of lower priority is on the increase.

I have chosen to empathize with the Buhari administration over the deaths of Internally Displaced Persons and international aid workers at the Rann IDP camp in Borno state by a bomb mistakenly dropped on the camp by a Nigerian Air Force Jet, but for the life of me I cannot understand why the President, who heavily criticized former President Jonathan's handling of the Boko Haram crisis, elected to delegate his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and some ministers to visit the victims and survivors of the Rann disaster to offer condolences and supposed support.

And to the Borno state governor who cheekily said there was progress because in his words there was no "blame game" as would have happened in the previous administration of Jonathan, I would just say, wake up and smell the coffee. I can see no excuse for this faux pas except the Borno state Governor is sarcastically trying to call out the Buhari government for its over indulgence in blaming previous administrations.

If it was possible, the Buhari administration would have taken out a registered trade mark on the phrase 'blame game'. Never in the history of Nigeria, and perhaps contemporary Africa, has an administration invested so much of its focus and time on blame gaming as the Buhari government. So Governor Shettima would have to pull more fallacious words out of his mischievous magical hat of illusions to be able to pin such a false accusation on the Jonathan Government.

It may be necessary to remind Governor Shettima that the Jonathan he so likes to blame visited Borno more than once as President during the height of the Boko Haram insurgency. Has President Buhari even bothered to drop by? That is how much the President thinks of him!

But in all this, we still must give God the glory that the mistake by the air force did not occur while Oby Ezekwesili and Lai Mohammed were combing Sambisa forest in search of the missing Chibok girls. 

And let me speak directly to the President. President Muhammadu Buhari, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, don't you think you owe it as a duty to be in Rann at this very moment to personally comfort victims and survivors of the unfortunate mistaken bombing by our Armed Forces? 

UN Investigative Panel On The Genocide In Southern Kaduna: A Call For Objectivity

By Paul Danbaki

In Southern Kaduna today,  many are desperately searching for answers right now. Southern Kaduna indegenes have seen their loved ones slaughtered, raped and brutalized. Some have watched their homes, businesses, villages, and religious places set ablaze and destroyed.

Husbands have helplessly watched their wives raped and humiliated.

Ordinary people have been killed and burned publicly. For years, Southern Kaduna has been experiencing economic, political and structural siege. Thousands of people are traumatized, resulting in a range of different cognitive, emotional, physical, and behavioural effects which impact communities negatively. Hearts are hurting and the suffering is deep!

From the aforementioned, I join myriads of good people of Southern Kaduna to welcome the decision to launch an independent investigation with a mandate to cover allegations of human rights violations since the unabated genocide in Southern Kaduna; I have confidence that the UN panel would indeed be independent, transparent, thorough and effective, with a view to establishing the veracity of the facts before it with a view to bringing to justice the perpetrators of the genocide in Southern Kaduna.

I am confident that the indegenes of Southern Kaduna are ready to assist in ensuring that the investigation is undertaken in line with international human rights standards. I also reiterate our request for access to the affected areas, as the situation on the ground makes it very challenging to access because of the ‘lies’ put forward by kingpins of the heinous attacks in the region.

More so, given the tense situation in southern Kaduna where a large security presence has reportedly been deployed only on the main streets and NOT in the bushes and hills/mountains where the brutal killers commit their crimes and withdraw to; in the midst of all these, there are still reports of ongoing arbitrary arrests, intimidation and harassment of people, a majority of whom are the victims, this call becomes vital for the survival of the Southern Kaduna nation.

Buhari, Halt The Genocide In Southern Kaduna Now!

By Ayodele Adio
Shortly after reading through Audu Maikori’s narration of the tragedy befalling the beautiful people of southern Kaduna, I was left in a state of limbo as to why the Nigerian state has consistently failed to protect its most vulnerable, why the life of the average Nigerian isn’t worth as much as that of a cow and why the agency of government saddled with the prime responsibility for maintaining internal security has become the lead cast in this ridiculous show of shenanigans? 

 

*Buhari 

One would have thought that the imposition of a 24 hour curfew might give way for the dust to settle, and even if the people of southern Kaduna were not planning a merry Christmas, a peaceful one would surely have sufficed. Sadly, that wasn’t to be as a group of militia herdsmen brazenly decimated a village named Goska, leaving about a dozen people dead and hundreds homeless. Typical of such attacks was the fact that the militia herdsmen met no resistance from any of our security operatives and as I write this piece not a single arrest has been made.

What is more worrisome is that the culprits have been identified as foreigners who have a score to settle with the people of southern Kaduna. How low can we go as a nation? That bandits from neighbouring countries can stroll into our country, spit on our territorial integrity, massacre our people and then demand monetary compensation, only to be insulted by Femi Adesina that the President doesn’t need to speak on the killings as the governor of Kaduna state is already on top of things, as if when his boss sends condolence messages to France and the United states when attacked by terrorists, their own governments aren’t on top of the matter.

The Global terrorism index has the Fulani herdsmen ranked as the 4th most deadliest terror group on earth today having killed thousands of innocent Nigerians. How this constantly fails to attract the urgent attention of Mr. President is completely beyond me, not even a sigh of empathy or a show of solidarity with the people. This is awfully shameful, insensitive and irresponsible from a country that prides itself in being the big brother of black Africa. We seem to be more worried about a group of people going home to their families to spend the Christmas holidays than we are about an armed militia, sacking communities, and wrecking havoc in Kaduna, Nassarawa, Adamawa, Benue, Zamfara, and Enugu.

The Bestiality In Southern Kaduna

By Dan Amor

Irrational impulses are not surprising in the stress and tension that characterize a demented society. In an atmosphere of violence, reason is sometimes abandoned and humanitarian principles forgotten. The inflamed passions of the time lead men to commit atrocities. But the concern here is not with the psychological pathology of those who commit atrocities but rather with what has turned our nation into a slaughterhouse where human beings are daily killed with intimidating alacrity. 

*President Buhari and Gov El-Rufai

Throughout modern history, atrocity propaganda has often mesmerized readers thousands of kilometres from the scene of the crime. Often, the improbability of the actions described suggests that the stories were little more than fantasies concocted for diverse reasons from even more diverse sources.

But the reading public in Nigeria has invariably evinced a morbid absorption with the most nightmarish aspects of this national aberration. It is indeed fashionable to observe that material which should create a moral aversion to the cruelty of our present times often produces a perverse fascination instead. There is, candidly speaking, an alarming rate of mockery killings in Nigeria, especially under the Buhari administration. There are gruesome stories of rapes, mutilations, perversities and child and mother murders. An extremely partisan and sympathetic public is willing to read and believe almost anything, if it were tinged with sadism. It is hard to explain why the change promised Nigerians by Buhari and his yea Sayers has come with enormous burden including death. Much of the savagery connected with our current bloodletting could be explained in the violence inherent in the characters of the buccaneers who have misruled us for all these miserable years.

If truly democracy is preferred to military rule all over the world, why are Nigerians going through this hell of experience in a democratic dispensation? Why is the government turning a blind eye to the holocaust and pornography of violence going on in Southern Kaduna? If Governor Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna state's revelation that: "the Fulani herdsmen who are killing Nigerians are from other West African States", is true, why are his government and the Federal Government allowing militants from other countries free access to slaughter other ethnic nationalities and the Christian communities in Southern Kaduna? Why are Nigerians objects of intimidation, genocidal massacre, annihilation, rape and abysmal extermination in their country? Why is the Federal Government exonerating itself from responsibility and complicity in the bestiality in Southern Kaduna while claiming that the state government is capable of managing the situation in Southern Kaduna? If the marauders are invaders from other countries, why did el Rufai pay them ostensibly to halt the killings?

Nasir El-Rufai, Nigeria And The Killer-Herdsmen

By Kenechukwu Obiezu

The concerned citizens who have over the years painfully followed the bloody mindless Kaduna State were hit with another sucker punch the other day: The Governor of Kaduna State and its Chief Security Officer, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai declared that he had paid Fulani herdsmen money to stop their attacks on long-suffering indigenes of Kaduna State, especially the Christian-dominated area of southern Kaduna.

Given his eccentricities and insatiable thirst for controversy, those who have followed his colourful political career from when he held the office of the Honourable Minister, FCT during which time countless buildings fell and countless families were rendered homeless controversially, to implement the Abuja Master Plan, to his current stint as Governor of Kaduna State, have never been starved of drama and unpredictability. His most ardent supporters and even many neutrals posit that the face of Abuja as it is today can be chalked up to the courage and determination of El-Rufai who allegedly tore down a house belonging to his father-in-law to give way to the Abuja Master Plan. Many would also argue that Kaduna State today is being set on a path of irreversible development. Razor-blunt and confrontational, since he assumed the highest office in the state.

To put it in proper perspective, the orgy of blood-letting which has enveloped Kaduna State for years now did not start with El Rufai. Years of internecine crises between the predominantly Christian Southern Kaduna area and the predominantly Muslim central and northern parts of the state have reduced one of Nigeria's most iconic states to a valley flowing with blood. When the Islamic Movement of Nigeria blindly charged into a confrontation with men of the Nigerian Army obviously lacking in professional restraint and were mercilessly massacred in Zaria, Kaduna State added another trophy to its bulging cabinet of mindless killings. A judicial commission of Inquiry was set up by El-Rufai and though the IMN never appeared as the condition it demanded for its appearance which was that its incarcerated leader, Ibraheem El- Zakzaky be released was never met, the Commission duly concluded its work within time and in its findings trenchantly indicted both the members of the IMN and the Nigerian Army for the bloodbath.

Since then, the IMN controversy has raged with its boiling point being Kaduna. When El Rufai introduced an executive bill which he posited was to ‘protect Kaduna State from extremism and hate speech,’ a cry of alarm issued from the throats of those who argued that there was more to the bill than met the eye in a state that has historically been a cauldron of religious tension.

It was against this background that the recent revelation by El Rufai that he had ladled out undisclosed sums of money to criminal herdsmen to placate them and stem their killings has drawn more than a little flak from Nigerians. Nigeria has officially been in recession for a while now and even those whose financial cocoons are the hardest have found themselves pricked even if only lightly by the austerity measures and seeming economic incompetency of a Federal Government which is looking more directionless by the day. Nigeria`s poor, of which ordinary families make up vast swaths have been desperately hit with many unable to maintain supply of the basic necessities of life ad many others losing their lives and livelihoods to the myriad negative effects of economic difficulties. From whence then, it must be asked, did El Rufai draw his ‘ingenious’ precedent of placating killer-herdsmen with money which seems in short supply in the Nigeria of today?

El-Rufai And The Genocide In Southern Kaduna

By Moses Ochonu

I don't envy my brother, Samuel Aruwan, his job as Press Secretary to Governor Nasir el-Rufai. It is becoming increasingly impossible to defend and rationalize the tyranny and erratic dictatorial tendencies of the governor. As governor, he seems to think that the state he governs is his private estate to control and dominate, and that he is beyond reproach.

*President Buhari and Nasir el-Rufai

And now, it is safe to say we can add the crime of insensitivity and incompetence to the governor's list of infractions. I couldn't believe the headline when I saw it: "How I Paid Fulani Herdsmen to Stop Kaduna Killings—El-Rufai." Alas, there is absolutely nothing factually incorrect about the headline, only a little sensationalism, which is what newspaper headlines do. To counter the Vanguard story, Samuel Aruwan has released the complete transcript of Governor el-Rufai's chat with select journalists. The part of the transcript dealing with the ongoing massacres in Southern Kaduna proves that the Vanguard report, which copiously quotes the governor's own words verbatim, faithfully reflects what the governor said. The quotes are completely accurate. You can question the obvious sensationalism of the headline, but el-Rufai practically cast that headline for them with his words. So here is what the governor scandalously confessed to:

1. The governor said Fulani herders from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, and other neighboring West African countries are responsible for the massacres, which he claims are revenge for the loss of their cattle and kinsmen during the 2011 post election crisis.

Perhaps this is true. Perhaps he is merely trying to externalize the problem. It is always very convenient to blame foreigners. Even Buhari did the same when Agatu happened. What el-Rufai does not realize is that blaming foreign Fulani herdsmen is self-indicting. It also indicts our security services and the administration of President Buhari. For how is it that these Fulani from neighboring countries are able to breach our borders at will while fully armed and make their way deep into the Southern Kaduna hinterlands, murder women and children, burn down whole communities, and melt away unchallenged to visit the same genocidal treatment on another community? At the very least, it indicates that we've totally lost control of our northern borders. The way the governor said it indicates that he doesn't see this breach of our borders by armed herdsmen as a problem. Rather, for reasons known only to him, he sees it as a normal seasonal migration by herdsmen. Does our border not mean anything?